WASHINGTON D.C. — President Donald Trump urged Congress in a Fox News Sunday interview to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act before it expires Thursday. The surveillance authority allows U.S. intelligence agencies to monitor the electronic communications of foreign nationals overseas without a warrant.

"It's really needed for national security," Trump said. He added: "I'm willing to give up my security for the military because ultimately that's to me the highest cause is, you know, the safety of our nation."

Section 702 was last reauthorized in 2024. The law also permits the collection of emails, text messages, and phone calls of U.S. citizens when they communicate with foreign nationals whose communications have been collected under the statute.

Earlier this month, two efforts to extend Section 702 — one for 18 months and the other for five years — failed. Opponents objected to a lack of privacy reforms and to a loophole allowing data brokers to sell private information about Americans to government agencies without judicial approval.

After those proposals failed, House Speaker Mike Johnson unveiled a bill to extend Section 702 for three years, require the FBI to submit monthly reports on its reviews of Americans' private data to an oversight official, and impose penalties for abuse. The House Rules Committee was set to convene on Monday to advance the new bill toward a vote in the House.

Rep. Jamie Raskin circulated a memo last week urging colleagues to reject the Republicans' proposal to extend Section 702. Earlier this month, four House Democrats — Josh Gottheimer, Tom Suozzi, Marie Gluesencamp Perez, and Jared Golden — broke with their party and joined Republicans in supporting a procedural vote to advance the reauthorization. Privacy advocates are increasing pressure on those four representatives to oppose the latest extension proposal.

According to the Cato Institute, only one well-documented, independently corroborated case of Section 702 preventing a terrorist attack on American soil has occurred: the 2009 New York subway bombing plot. In that case, the National Security Agency used Section 702 to track an exchange between an al-Qaeda courier and Najibullah Zazi, who was living in the United States. The NSA passed the information to the FBI, which identified Zazi and disrupted the attack before it took place.